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Wildlife Ranger
Ken Francis
其他書名
My Years in the New Zealand Outdoors
出版Whitcoulls, 1983
ISBN07233069909780723306993
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=hZgKAQAAMAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋When, as a teenager, Ken Francis left England to begin a new life in New Zealand, he could not have known that he was to dedicate the rest of his life to preserving the natural heritage of his adopted homeland. He was a very young man when he bacame a fully warranted Forest Ranger (and New Zealand's first Wildlife Officer) and was sent out on bush patrol and ranging duties, seeking out poachers and teaching himself the laws of bushcraft under extremely unsympathetic conditions. In 1930 Ken Francis's life took on a whole new dimension when he joined Internal Affairs to work on deer control operations. Since their introduction, the numbers of deer in New Zealand had increased enormously and by the Depression years they were causing incalculable damage to the landscape, triggering massive and appalling erosion. Facing the severity of the problem changed Ken Francis 'from being a carefree, fatalistic young field officer to an almost fanatical conservationist.' He and the other men recruited to kill deer faced conditions of almost unbelievable hardship, in those days when his horse and his rifle were often all that stood between a man and certain death in remote, uncharted country, when helicopter rescues were unheard of and when the only equipment issued was hopelessly outdated. No less adventurous, though closer to civilisation, were the years Ken Francis spent as Government Ranger at Taupo and then in the Bay of Plenty. Here lake patrols, the prevention of trout poaching and illegal shooting, trout rearing, pursuing escaped prisoners and entertaining governors-general were but some of the aspects of a busy, fascinating life. It was his appointment as Chief Ranger for Hawke's Bay and manager of the famous Greenmeadows Game Farm which led to the author's becoming a world authority on kiwis. Wildlife Ranger is a book crowded with incident, the excitement of adventure and an abundance of lively humour. It is also a very serious book, which tells more than just one man's story. Ken Francis is making a heartfelt plea for conservation. Both as a fascinating account of a remarkable life and as a call to save our natural heritage from extinction, Wildlife Ranger is a book which all New Zealanders should read and enjoy.